A Break

I need a break. Badly. I sort of got one yesterday, when I went Christmas shopping at the Mall of America with only my wife and baby. The four year-old stayed home with a babysitter. Parents will understand why yesterday was something of a break; those without children will rightly wonder how going to the Mall of America on the busiest Saturday of the year, with a baby, could be considered a break.  As with everything, it is all relative, I guess.

So this morning my lovely wife, seeing the desperation in my eyes, told me to take off for a while.  I’ve been working on a political post for about a month, and need a couple of uninterrupted hours to get it done, so I decided that I would use my break to go to a coffee shop and write.

I approached my daughter, “Honey, I’m going to go out for a bit.”

“Where are you going, Daddy.”

“I’m going to go get some coffee and write.”

“Why?”

“Because I want to.”

“You can get coffee here.”

“I know.”

“You can write here.”

“Not really. It’s too loud and there are too many distractions.”

“Well…I’ll bring you coffee and I promise to be quiet.”

Now I pretty much knew that I wasn’t going anywhere, but I had one more sentence in me anyway, “Thanks, honey. But I’m going to go out. I’ll only be gone for a little while.”

“Okay,” she looked at her feet and whispered, “I’ll miss you.”

So… here I sit in the basement, covered with a blanket, a fire in the fireplace, the dog snoring next to me. My soul mate has the kids two floors above me, where I can barely hear them bathing.  Maybe I should have been firmer in my convictions. Maybe I should have gone out and finished that essay. And, then again, maybe not.